


Innate

by lightningwaltz



Category: Messiah Project - All Media Types
Genre: Awkwardness, Kissing, M/M, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 09:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9602384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/pseuds/lightningwaltz
Summary: Haku and Eiri take a daytrip. [Set around the end of Hisui no Shou.]





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Celtic_Knot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celtic_Knot/gifts).



> Belated birthday present for Haylee. I swear on tumblr you once said that this was one of your OTPs. I hope I'm right. I definitely loved writing this for you!
> 
> This takes place in Hisui no Shou after the climactic scenes, but before Haku and Eiri leave. Eiri did get a pretty major wound, so I figure there was probably a lot of downtime where Haku and Eiri got a chance to chill out and reconnect. Or so I hope.

Haku has heard the rumors that Souma and Shuusuke were permitted a short vacation after Graduation. It would have been just a few days away from everything before they would have begun their true work. Just a few days, and that must have been it. Even the most fanciful cadet is unwilling to give them more than a week of imagined respite. 

It must be possible to verify the truth behind this hearsay, but Haku has no desire to try. In his mind, Shuusuke is the one who wrangled the favor (who else would it be?), and it's satisfying to picture his smile upon achieving that victory. It's satisfying to picture Souma's gaping, guileless face in that brief instant when surprise would have erased expression and sound. 

Haku would rather live in the world where these things are one possibility out of many. Finding out for sure would extinguish all paths but the true one. Haku's never liked having that sort of power. And there must be some quiet, bitter cadets who prefer to think that Souma and Shuusuke were sent away from each other immediately. 

Haku and Eiri won't get a vacation. That much is certain. No one in authority has raised the possibility, and neither of them have the audacity to push for it. When people like Souma and Shuusuke agitate to break the rules, that's fine. That's good. They deserve certain liberties. However, people like Haku have no right to chip away at the foundation of this place. He's been a catatonic wreck lately, but he doesn't want to leave the kouhai on a platform of quicksand. 

Eiri does have his bullet wound, so they haven't gone anywhere in weeks. A distant part of Haku is aware of the hypothetical puns. After all, a Church is a good place for a grace period. But Haku can't see grace in blood transfusions, stitches, and cratered wounds that will harden into scars. There's no grace in Haku bring Eiri cups of ice, and Eiri sucking on them in guilty silence. 

That injury has mostly healed by now, and Eiri can move unassisted. People are making noise about sending two of them on their way, but Haku thinks that's awfully premature. This has nothing to do with his own biases. Bullets have a nasty habit of disrupting the careful balance of muscle, fat, and bone. Below Eiri's raw new skin, there's clearly a reservoir of pain. Haku wonders what would pour out if someone pierced through to it; blood, or bile, or water? 

Maybe their commanders have the right idea, though. Eiri proposes a daytrip into the city; hardly the impulse of an invalid. There's something almost shy about him when he brings up the idea, and he stares at the floor when his request is approved. Haku goes along with it because he's staring down the barrel of years of seclusion. He doesn't have much variety in his diet, but he's become accustomed to variety in his social life. 

"Where are we going?" Haku asks, fifteen minutes into their train trip. Until this point, it's been a terse affair, mostly because they don't know how to _do_ this. There'd been a lot of oxygen spent on figuring out where to put their money, where to put their tickets. The train route maps had made Haku think of illustrations of the Minotaur's labyrinth. 

Souma had always been the one to handle these sorts of practicalities. 

_Bombs shipped abroad don't have to think about these kinds of things either._

Eiri has that brittle grin he gets when he doesn't know the answer. And won't admit it.

"You'll see!"

"I guess I will." After all, they have to go somewhere. Even if they just circle all the way back to the Church. A day spent on a train with Eiri... that's hardly a waste of time. 

Eiri folds his hands in his lap. Haku watches the knuckles become paler and paler with each stop. It's a rare sight- Eiri often has gloves on at work- and Haku doesn't hide his staring. The bomb metaphor is an apt one. At an undeniably random location, Eiri explodes out of the train, not bothering to see if Haku follows. He spends a few seconds staying in his seat, wondering what might happen if he allows public transportation to carry him away from his messiah. He's almost dizzy at the thought of movement and separation. The doors nearly close on his heel as he exits. 

"I got off at the wrong location," Eiri says, still a little manic. Clinging to the veneer of a plan with all his might. "Sorry." 

"Where did you want to go? We can ask our phones for directions. We might be able to get, um, a cab to come get us?" In movies, people seemed to do that with a few taps on their phone. They've figured out harder things.

"Er. Well..." 

There would be no pleasure in making Eiri admit there had never been a plan, save to get away. 

"We can walk around, Eiri. We'll find something to do here."

He expects to hear Eiri's very distinct sigh of relief. Instead, he looks even more sad. "Sounds good." 

The area isn't a very commercial one. There are chain shops but, otherwise, they spend a while meandering through alleys bracketed by apartments. The air is gray with fog, but there's a warm humidity that settles on their skin and intermingles with sweat. Eiri's frustration is as bright as one of the street lights, and Haku doesn't have the words to say that this is fine. The people here haven't drawn their blinds, and every other window provides him a tableau of family life. The distant realm they're trying to preserve. Before Eiri, there'd been a mission that had led him into the zoo. This is quite similar to that. 

Everything seems to dissolve when Eiri yanks on Haku's sleeve. "How about here? This mineral museum?" 

"Sure." Saying no might give Eiri a heart attack. 

The building is cool, and dark. The brightest lights are in the exhibits, catching the razor edges of shimmering cubic gems. Sometimes the stones are transparent and petal pink. Sometimes they're as dark as arterial blood. This isn't something that has ever really interested the two of them, insofar as they have hobbies. Haku reads, and Eiri sometimes goes out- just before curfew- to map the stars in a notebook. A world of ideas, and a world of the sky, with few thoughts to spare for the places well below their feet. 

And yet, here it is. Each exhibit is an unabashed testimony to the world beneath the earth's crust. There's dirt and rot, and a rage-hot core to it all. Magma and wells. But sometimes, in the confluence of all that pressure and heat, the earth's kiln creates something precious. Something that reflects the light back.

Haku and Eiri stay and talk. Taking their time is a rare pleasure, so they wait until they hear the automated warning that the museum will close soon. They follow signs to a gift shop, and Haku wonders if anyone truly buys gifts from here. Initially, the books are what catch his eye. They're either picture books for children, or five-hundred page tomes, and nothing in between. Their pages are crisp and bright, and the spines practically fight him when he tries to open them. 

There's also a long, long table with different kinds of stones for sale. All These attract Eiri immediately, and Haku soon finds his way over. Each compartment has a little laminated sign spelling out their price and symbolic meanings. All of them are no bigger than his thumbnail and all of them remind him of hard candy. He picks up something green- Russian demantoid, apparently, and not emerald- and studies it. He almost wants to lick its surface because it seems like it should taste like the _essence_ of green. Lime and mint and apples, but also things he rarely eats, like cilantro and spinach. And things people generally don't eat all, unless starvation forces their hand; ivy and grass and all kinds of poisonous plants. When he handles clear quartz, he wants to consume that too. It reminds him of Eiri's ice cubes, and it looks like it would taste like that salty scent that clogs up your nose after crying. 

Eiri doesn't touch anything at all, until he selects four different stones and puts them in a small plastic bag. 

"What are those?"

"I'm giving them to the kouhai." Eiri ties a second knot into the bag. "The signs about what the stones mean... I picked out ones that remind me of each of them. Is that weird? I probably won't tell them that they're supposed to mean something."

Haku is the wrong person to for advice on proper behavior. "I'll pay for half of them." And Eiri visibly relaxes at the tacit approval. When Haku buys some candy that's meant to look like quartz, Eiri gives him some money for that, too. 

As they walk away, the landscape incrementally changes. More stores, more people, more fog. Eiri's stopped trying to rush into the unknown, which can only be a good sign. They duck into an alleyway and sit on some steps. Haku is disappointed that the rock candy mostly tastes like sugar. The texture is fun, though. With every piece, he sucks on it slowly and relaxes as it dissolves on the roof of his mouth. 

"Haku?"

When he turns to look, Eiri's lips end up on his. They're cold and slippery from the precipitation, but it's not uncomfortable. If anything, it's soothing.

 _Oh! Okay._

It's their first kiss since... before Eiri's 'death.' They'd held hands, and he'd cradled Eiri to him in a mess of adrenaline and blood. But no kissing. Not on the forehead, or the cheek, and definitely not on the mouth. 

Sometimes an overworked person greedily chugs down water. Sometimes they take a sip, realize they are parched, and discover they can't drink enough. This kiss is like the latter scenario. Haku relaxes into it, opening his mouth a little, stroking his messiah's damp hair. Eiri shoves his tongue in like he won't get another chance, then makes a muffled noise when he realizes Haku hadn't finished his candy. They push it back and forth, and there's a some laughter, and eventually it ends up in Eiri's mouth. 

When they pull apart, Eiri's lips are redder than usual. There's an audible crunching sound as he grinds the candy between his teeth. 

"I can't even get angry with you for that one. Since I kind of jumped you." Eiri swallows. "Damn, that's bland though." And yet he helps himself to another piece. 

"The appeal seems to be how it looks." He does wonder how it's made. Maybe he can look it up when they return home. "You taste better." 

Eiri kicks a rock that's near his boot. As it collides with the brick wall, Haku realizes no one would put it in a museum. 

"You act like you want me to jump you again." 

But Haku kisses him instead. Even though Eiri hasn't finished his candy either. 

Soon it's raining in earnest and, when they pause to regroup, Haku notices that Eiri looks worryingly fatigued. So much of his energy is being redirected to convalescence, these days. 

"I guess we should head back." Eiri looks nauseous, as though even that little bit of effort is exhausting. 

"Okay, don't take this the wrong way, but I saw signs for a love hotel a few blocks away." 

"What." A flat sound, that seems to float unattached to a question mark.

"We could spend a few hours. You could nap." 

Eiri shakes his head, but doesn't protest. It's a short walk, but it seems to drain him further. Still, he insists on equally dividing the cost of their room. 

"I've never been in one of these places," Eiri mumbles as they shut the door behind them. He struggles to get out of his sodden shirt, so Haku carefully pulls it off and away. He makes Eiri sit on the bed, and removes his pants with the same amount of care. Eiri is breathing hard, and Haku can't tell why. Exertion, probably?

But there's something else, too. An ineffable emotion that's been flowing back and forth between the two of them, ever since Haku killed his brother. Ever since Eiri returned from the grave. Haku can't get his hands around it. Sometimes it feels like love, sometimes it feels like loss. Sometimes it feels like neither. 

When he removes his own clothes, he has to stare at the wall. Blink rapidly. There are no windows in here, presumably to shield the usual inhabitants from curious eyes. Haku likes this design aspect. It reminds him of their room in Sakura.

Eiri falls into deep sleep almost immediately. Haku does not. He thinks about reading something on his phone. Instead he memorizes the curve of Eiri's shoulder. The way his lashes splay over his cheeks. His lips look so lush and soft, but Eiri often kisses like he wants to gnaw on something. Some of Haku's favorite books dealt with the history of art. One long ago kingdom excelled in miniaturist drawings. Even in copies, those portrait's luminous eyes seemed to know Haku across distance and centuries. 

Haku studies Eiri's features like he's one of those ancient painters. He studies Eiri like this is his life's work. 

When Eiri wakes up, there's no groggy slide into fully consciousness. 

"I didn't need a nap!" He sounds truly rested indeed. And ready to fight. 

"Maybe I did."

"Oh you slept?"

"Nope." 

Eiri scoffs. Haku wants to make another joke, because every instance of shared laughter rebuilds the bridge that connects the two of them. There's one that floats around in his head, and never seems to stick the landing. Something about how Eiri goes crazy at candy wrappers in bed, but is fine lying down in a place where countless people have had sex. 

"Oh well. You'll sleep for days when I'm done with you." 

Eiri isn't well enough to crawl on top of Haku. It doesn't matter. The declaration makes Haku roll onto his side, until they're both facing each other. For a while they stare, unsmiling, but not unhappily. Then he submits to Eiri's hands. Eiri holds him like he's worth more than any of the gems they saw today. And Haku's head is already full of sharpness and light. Like it's made up of diamonds that haven't been barred behind glass. 

"You really want to do this?" 

"We've got hours left, still, and this is why people come here."

Then they stop speaking aloud. 

But Eiri's hands are full of questions.

_Will we be okay?_

And Haku's lips are full of answers.

_Yes, someday, yes. You're my messiah. Yes._

**Author's Note:**

> There are green garnets! That's what Haku was looking at. The.more.you.know.gif.


End file.
